Writing

The Latest Anthem

/ Ashley / 1 Comment

I’ve been working unreasonable hours lately. All on my own will though. My supervisors have made it perfectly clear that any overtime I work is completely optional. I suppose it’s better than mandatory overtime. I’ve been doing it to keep busy. It’s sort of pathetic that to fill up my time, I decide to take on additional mind-numbing work. But it’s what I’m doing.

You would think that working 36 hours in the last three days would make me tired. But no, I’m just about wide awake around midnight, listening to my new favorite album – Chamber Music Society by Esperanza Spalding. Buy it now. It’s wonderful. It’s one of those albums that’s like a new discovery every time you listen to it. I may be speaking prematurely since I just got it yesterday. But I have listened to it about eight times today. The strings are beautiful and make me want to collaborate with other string players to create beautiful improvisatory avant garde pop jazz songs. If only I had those skills and actually played my violin more than a half hour once a week. During which, I play exclusively Suzuki Book 1 with an eight year old who likes mustard on pancakes (true story).

I decided to stay after the lesson this week to play on my own. It was rough. My fingers have sort of forgot how to vibrato properly. I lost my bow grip about five  years ago and have since been struggling to get it back. My six month hiatus didn’t exactly help that. Regardless, it felt good to be making sound again. I’m not ready to call it music. Right now, it’s just some horse hair across some steel making sounds in some sort pattern. It will eventually become music though. And I’ve already made plans to collaborate with a cellist to play some duets together. I think it will be fun. From what I understand, he’s also returning to playing after having not played seriously for months. So if initially we suck, at least we’ll suck together.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this lost in an album. It’s beautiful in such a terrible way. It makes me nostalgic for moments I have yet to experience. It makes me want to drink a single glass of white wine and cook an amazing italian meal for myself and a handsome man. It makes me want to sit alone on a patio and watch a storm roll in. I also want to eat meringue for some reason.

I’m doing my best to focus on myself right now. I’m trying to remember the things I was once passionate about. The last time I remember really being on my one was my freshman year. I was excited about so much. About music and art and lovely quotes that I couldn’t quite wrap  my head around. I was eager to express myself by whatever means available. This resulted in decoupage, about six new playlists a week, a devotion to Bukowski and beat poetry that last about three months, and a fierce coffee addiction. Looking back, I was immature about a lot of things. But of course I didn’t see it that way. I saw myself as a cardigan-wearing maverick who happened to be really excited about pretty words. I was also very clever and mature for my age. [read: I made some foolish decisions, read some very bad books, and thought I was hip when I introduced friends to awful bands they hadn’t previously heard of.]

I’m getting back to that point – not the 18-year old naivete, because that would be terrible, but getting back to seeing myself as an individual who is free and morally obligated to discover herself. Right now, this consists of working 50+ hours in a cubicle every week, reading terrible best sellers , listening to jazz that makes me feel like I’m seeing it live, working through Soulpancake, trying new recipes, and accurately designing how my new bedroom will look.

Anyway, I’m starting to lose concentration, so I think it’s finally time I go to bed. But I’ll leave you with this, just because I can’t stop listening to this song.

How I avoid writing on a typical day

/ Ashley / 1 Comment

When I sat down to write this, I had a cup of coffee which I needed to drink first. My brain was too tired and moving too slowly to be productive at all. Since I couldn’t write while drinking coffee, I decided to browse facebook. On facebook, I looked at old pictures and saw how thin my face used to be. Then I looked in the mirror to see how round it had become. My eyelids looked heavy (from the lack of caffeine), my skin pale and blotched from acne scars, and my lips were cracked. I was distracted by my appearance. I felt ugly and unproductive, so obviously I had to take a shower. I wanted to feel really good so I took a long time showering. I let my skin soak in all the hot water, then I scrubbed with a loofa until I was covered in milky peach-scented suds. I shaved carefully, using shaving cream and a fresh razor. I returned to my computer in my robe, having decided to let my hair air-dry. But then it gave me the chills so I had to blow-dry it. Then I had to curl it, otherwise it would look bad for the rest of the day.

Since I did my hair, I had to do my makeup, though I did it quickly (powder, blush, mascara). Then I had to get dressed. I wanted to be comfortable, but I didn’t want to have to change later, so I chose a favorite pair of jeans and a sweater.

Then I sat down to write. By then, my coffee had grown cold and I needed to get a fresh cup. My brain still wasn’t awake, but I forced myself to write anyway.

While I was writing, I was distracted, worrying about the weather for the rest of the week. Then I thought about the piece I had worked on a few weeks back and decided to return to that draft. If I was going to get anything published, it needed to be polished and that was the closest complete piece I had.

But I had started this piece and I didn’t want to lose focus, so I continued writing this one, the one about the miss to ma’am business, the essay that’s been floating around in my head for the last month or so. So I continued with this one, though I wasn’t happy with how the setting was described. I needed the coffee shop to come alive. I needed the high school boys to be both vivid characters and essential components of the setting. But I just needed it to get out, I would return to it later, so I moved onto the dialog. The dialog read like the conversation, but there was too much white space.

There’s always too much white space with my dialog. It’s a cheap way to get the page count up, right?

Then I moved onto the pinnacle moment, the point where I cease to feel like a girl and begin to feel like a woman. There’s that moment, not of intersection or overlap, but a vacuum of a moment, in which there is no sense of self, only questioning. I wanted to describe that moment, that void of identity, but I couldn’t do it. I thought of describing the way my toes were squeezed into my shoes or about how I used to wiggle a utensil between bites in hopes that might illustrate the anxiety a girl feels when her sense of self is changing demographics. But it wasn’t working.

So I said I would return to it. I knew what would come next. I knew the strange boy needed to say that thing about my shoes and that the other one would tease him, and that Heather would say something dumb, so I could write that in later. I would return to it. Hemingway would always stop at a point where he knew what would happen next. In a sense, he never had a “complete” writing session, just thousands of them threaded together by thoughts and ideas. Brilliant bastard.

At this point, it looks more like a short story, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be a personal essay, so I should be reflecting, shouldn’t I? So I tried to muse a little bit. I mused about femininity and what it meant to be a girl and what it meant to be a woman. The result was a pathetic list of self-indulgent behaviors that made me realize that despite the fact I’m 24, according to my own list of qualifiers, I’m very much a girl and not a woman.

So then I looked in the mirror and saw a girl, and I decided to make myself look like a woman. I tried to put on lipstick, since that’s a thing women do, and found that I don’t know how to apply it. So I watched five videos on youtube about how to get the perfect red lips. I reapplied the lipstick to find that I don’t like how I look with lipstick. And that I hate the way it feels – like a thin layer of half-dried Elmer’s glue that eventually sucks all the moisture out of my lips.

Then I sat and wondered what the harm was in being a girl and not a woman. Girls just want to have fun. Women just want to have babies. Right? Isn’t that the real difference?

Two hours after sitting down with the initial cup of coffee, I decided I had done enough work. I had left off at a Hemingway stopping point anyway, so I would have no problem returning to get some real work done the next day.

Right?

Welcome back to fiction, Ashley!

/ Ashley / 2 Comments

I met with a former professor a few weeks ago, telling her I wanted to pick her brain on writing and publishing but secretly hoping some of her brilliance would rub off on me and inspire me to write an incredible best-selling novel or memoir. I ended up going away with my publication process knowledge reaffirmed (search for lit mags and journals, write a short cover letter, include a SASE, include your manuscript, expect rejection), a realization that I am unfamiliar with the concept of economy of language, and a name to contact about a writer’s group.

I met with the writer’s group today. It was a slightly varied group, our ages ranging from 24 to what I assume was 50s. I was the only female to show up today. Apparently one was hungover, the other three had other obligations. We discussed two first chapters – one a sci-fi and the other a sort of coming of age story that reminded me a lot of David Rhodes. While I had a difficult time critiquing the sci-fi since it’s a genre I literally never read, I realize it’s probably a good exercise for me to read and think about.

It was exciting to talk with other writers, to know that there are people slaving away at computers (one used a typewriter, claiming it was too easy to highlight and delete passages he’d miss later on), and that I am welcome to join them. It was surprisingly refreshing to be confronted with fiction again. I’ve spent the last year so intent on writing memoir that  fiction has become this sort of looming figure in the back of my head. I told myself to avoid it because I felt so passionately about writing my own stories. In the past, a person or a phrase would stick in my head and I’d think to include it in a short story. It’s been years since I’ve met a new person in my head. But talking with these guys reminded me of all the possibilities of  fiction.

There’s a definite comfort in writing memoir: things happen to you. Reflect. It’s as simple as that. With fiction, you have the responsibility to create realistic and likable characters, worlds need to feel real, the plot needs to feel immediate and make sense, pacing needs to feel just right, the language succinct, all while maintaining an honest true-to-you voice.

It’s a lot to take on, but that’s exciting to know that I’m able to do that. I’ve done it in the past, and now that I’ve gone through and discussed books and stories and theories for hours upon hours, I know what makes something successful.

So I’m planning on taking the time tomorrow to sit and write fiction. I have a scenario, characters, a conflict, and a bit of dialogue. With any luck, I’ll be able to get a first draft out.

On meeting David Sedaris

/ Ashley / 4 Comments

I wonder what it would be like to stand behind a podium knowing that everybody in front of you paid at least $30 to hear the things floating around in your head. I got to the Overture Center about 40 minutes before the show started. There was already a line for book signing. And there was a line for refreshments. By refreshments they meant cocktails. Faced with the two options, I wavered for only a moment before deciding to get in line for the book signing. Unfortunately, some guy wearing earbuds and diligently updating his facebook on his iphone told us he needed to limit the pre-show signing, but they would return after and David would be there as long as it took. So, I abandoned that line and wandered over by the elevator to get to my seat.

Soon enough, I was in my seat, marveling at my view. If I had been there to see a performance, it wouldn’t have been great, but I was just there to watch a guy read. The novelty was the fact that I now had a face and body connected to the voice I had heard while listening to his audiobooks. I had a silly grin for the first piece, I Will Not Be Running for President, for that fact alone. Of course, it was wry and clever the way most of his pieces are, but the fact was that I was there. I was in the same room (if you can call that a room) as this man. The idea of celebrity is a funny thing. I never really think about it, because I’m never interacting with celebrities.

I was in this room with the same man who had changed the way I thought about writing. Prior to reading his work, I hadn’t had any real desire to look into memoir or personal narratives. Granted, he doesn’t write memoir, he writes essays, but the concept is still the same. He made me realize that all the journals I had been writing in since fifth grade could actually amount to something. I spent years thinking I had to write either fiction or poetry. Since I don’t do poetry, I was limited to fiction. And most of my fiction closely resembled my life, which felt like cheating. I realized I sort of adored him for that – for making me realize there was potential in the thing I felt most driven to do. By the same token, I resented myself just a little for not having realized it on my own accord. So, while I love what he does, I love the the ways in which I have changed since reading his work.

I wonder if this is what other people say when they meet celebrities. I’m trying to imagine now, what it would be like to meet a movie star. I don’t feel compelled to make a connection to someone in a movie. Sure, I think Patrick Dempsey is good looking, but what would I ask him? What would I want to know about him? And while Kristin Davis plays my favorite character on Sex and the City, I don’t want to meet her. I might get a kick out of seeing them at the grocery store, but other than that, what would possibly come from that?

I stepped out a few moments before the show was done so I could get in line for the book signing. I bought Holidays on Ice (which I haven’t read. I’ve only heard “Santaland Diaries” on This American Life). I was the fifth person in line. When I saw him crossing the lobby to the table, I realized this was both good and bad. Good because it meant I would get home before midnight. Bad because I still hadn’t really given any thought to what I was planning on saying to him. I remembered that he likes to collect jokes from people, but I couldn’t think of anything other than bad orchestra jokes. (How do you get a cello section to play fortissimo? Tell them to play pianissimo espressivo. What’s the difference between a viola and a violin? A violin burns faster.) So I went with the first thing that came to my mind. 

I handed him the book, and as he signed, I said, “I don’t have any jokes for you, but I do have something to show you.” I clasped my hands together and pressed the thumbs side by side. “I have two thumbs that are completely different.”

At that point, he looked up from the page. “Oh my gosh! You do! They’re completely different! How did that happened?”

“This one is my dad’s, and this one is my mom’s.” I wiggled each thumb accordingly.

To my delight, he pulled out his pocket notebook and wrote “Ashley 2 thumbs”.

The goal was to get David Sedaris to remember me. I doubt it will amount to anything, but maybe he’ll flip through it on a flight and say, “Oh yeah. That girl with the funny thumbs.”